He is also known as the adult Kunta Kinte in the landmark miniseries Roots and for portraying James Evans Sr. on the CBS television series Good Times.

[3] He enrolled at Long Beach City College and graduated from Colorado State University becoming a social worker with a degree in sociology.

That same year, he had a small part in the cult film Vanishing Point, playing a radio engineer alongside Cleavon Little.

After the death of Betty White in 2021, Amos and Joyce Bulifant (who played Marie Slaughter) were the last surviving cast members of the show, excluding child actors.

Like Rolle, Amos wanted to portray a positive image of an African-American family struggling against the odds in a poor neighborhood, but he expressed dissatisfaction after he saw the premise slighted by a lower level of comedy on Good Times.

[11] During his tenure on the sitcom, Amos openly clashed with the writers of the show, pointing to the scripts' lack of authenticity in portraying the African-American experience.

Damn!” In 1977, Amos starred in the ABC-TV Miniseries Roots,[9] as the adult Kunta Kinte, based on the book by author Alex Haley.

[9] Amos was a frequent guest on The West Wing,[9] portraying Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, who serves as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for most of the show.

Hamilton Strawn (Tommy's father),[9] Touched by an Angel, Psych, Sanford and Son, My Name Is Earl, Lie to Me, and Murder, She Wrote.

[19] Amos wrote and produced Halley's Comet, a critically acclaimed[20] one-man play that he performed around the world.

Amos performed in August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean on Broadway[21] and later at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey.

His other film appearances include Vanishing Point (1971), The President's Plane Is Missing (1973),[9] Touched by Love (1980), The Beastmaster (1982),[9] Dance of the Dwarfs (1983), American Flyers (1985),[9] Coming to America (1988),[9] Lock Up (1989),[9] Two Evil Eyes (1989), Die Hard 2 (1990), and Ricochet (1991).

The couple had two children: Shannon Amos, a writer-producer and the founder of Afterglow Multimedia, LLC, and Grammy-nominated director K.C.

[28] Amos died of congestive heart failure at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, California, on August 21, 2024, at the age of 84.

He won three TV Land Awards for his roles on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Good Times, and Roots.